How are we to be–in a climate of relativism, amongst the spiritual–with nonbelievers and with believers of every stripe? St. Paul says, "Live a life worthy of your calling" (Ephesians 4:1).

God has met us through baptism into Jesus' life, death and resurrection. By Jesus' ministry we are in touch with the divine heart. This is our truth, and the center of our joy. No reason for rancor. We share our adoration for God listening carefully for God's good news in others, whether they use our words or not. Jesus has "...sheep that are not of our fold" (John 10:16). So, we resist arrogance.

Jesus calls us to believe with integrity and love without distinction. That's how he did it! Our certainty is: God is love, our understanding of truth is evolving and we are a human family.

It's easy to sleepwalk through life, school, marriage, work and retirement. This kind of life sleep is so insidious we can be asleep to the fact that we're asleep! We would go on sleeping if pain or calamity didn't shake us and wake us.

Paul woke up the people of his community with this simple phrase, "Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord." With this clear and gentle invitation he called people to look at life, as it is, with the light of Jesus' words and teaching.

When we do this, if we do this, we wake up to three facts: We fall short. God is merciful. Life is a gift. In this light we now see light. New possibilities–for ourselves and for things we touch–spring up. We are the children of a bright morning, but we have to wake up first.

Do you remember fire drills? Class interrupted. Walking quickly and quietly outside. It was a test for the principal, the teachers and the students. The building might burn, but we would be fine.

St. Paul said our work for Jesus will be tested, too. And by fire! Some people think that when fire of one sort or the other comes, that God has abandoned them. Fire as punishment. Others think that God sends particular kinds of fire down on us to test us. So we can be better Christians.

I find myself in a third group. My group knows that fire happens to all kinds of people. Into every life must come a little fire. And when fire comes we learn quickly what is precious and durable and what is made of inferior quality. Fire won't burn our faith, but the heat will refine us. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)

Jeremiah heard a whisper from God: Go and watch the potter work the clay. See how he takes something flawed and spoiled and reworks it according to his good purpose. There's a spectacular image for our best relationship to God! Malleable clay, on a spinning world, in the hands of a genius potter.

How's your Christian formation going? Not just hearing the words of the Potter but allowing them to shape you, the marriage, the money, the response to fear, the response to neighbor. It's worth it to ask: What categories of my life do I push the hands of the Maker away and say I know best?

But don't stop at the question. Confess with the author of Proverbs that "the beginning of wisdom is awe and reverence of God and that the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Glory to the Potter. Choose to be clay today.

Jesus said we should "pray to God to send laborers out into his harvest (Matthew 9:35-10:23). Laborers, not spectators. Christianity was always supposed to be a verb, an exertion amidst the unfamiliar. Second, the labor is out; out is where the harvest is! The church is the people called out to be out in the world for God.

Notice among many declining and dying churches there is more "our-ness" than out-ness. One indicator of a church's vitality is the percentage of church members engaged in some form of out-ness.

But, Jesus doesn't leave us out and alone. He gives us a parting gift: authority or power. The thing is, you won't be sure you have it until you activate with action. Then, we're told to go to the lost–physically be with. You know who Jesus means.

The world gives and we accept its titles: disabled, racial minority, elderly, immigrant, widow, poor, rich, retired, liberal and conservative, just to name a few. Such titles can't possibly describe what God wants to accomplish with us.

If we're not careful, accepting these titles will limit what we think of ourselves and others and diminish what we think God can do through us. Consider the titles God offers: watered garden, repairer of the breach, salt, light, a city on a hill, spiritually wise, friend, conqueror and great.

God's titles remind us that when we put ourselves at God's disposal by partnering with Jesus, abundance will flow through us. We are divinely designated to be flavor amidst the bland, candles never to be covered over, bright billboards on display in public places. You are light. So shine!

People say "wow" a lot in conversations today. Have you noticed that? Mostly it's an expression of polite interest. But wow is a spiritual state. Wow is the grandchild of awe and majesty. Wow is how we respond to beauty, immensity and complexity. Wow is a fast car to God. Wow is stars on a black night, lightning at sea, a hovering full moon. It's a tall pine tree waving, a sleeping child, a Maya Angelou sentence.

Wow offers us a chance at real humility. Wow is to stand before something superior in genius and feel an elegance we did not create, could not create. Wow orders the chin upward in praise. Or, downward in solidarity with the lowly. Wow softens the heart. Wow is considering the works of God's fingers, galaxies, quasars and quarks and knowing "the Lord is mindful of us and cares for us." Wow!

When I rest, I feel so good, such that I don't know why I don't rest more. Summertime, for many, brings a slowdown. I pray that you will use this slowdown to rest your minds, bodies and souls this summer.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us, "Labor is a craft, but perfect rest is an art. Rest or sabbath is a palace in time which we build. It's practice for eternity." Rest, he says, "is not an interlude but the climax of living. Humans are no beasts of burden."(p. 14-15, The Sabbath)

Your life is too precious, your family too dear, your calling too essential, your creativity too necessary to be chronically diminished by exhaustion. Rest is one way to reject this world's commodification of humanity.

This summer, go back to the places, the books, the embraces or the quiet that replenishes you. Or, find new ways to just rest!

He must have been desperate. Leaders of the upper class don’t seek out low-class street preachers unless they’re desperate. His daughter was dying. Parents will do anything to save their children. Parents who don’t pray will pray. Those who have been indifferent to Jesus will call on his power, if the fear is great and the loss will devastate. Jesus didn’t judge him or lecture him. He blessed him. He saved the child. I guess what lower and upper class folks have in common is the space for new faith that desperation creates. And, a merciful God.

People remember Jesus calmed the wind and the sea with a phrase, “Peace! Be still!” What is less remembered is Jesus taught his followers to be able to do the same. “Where is your faith?” Jesus asked them. Following Jesus is about taking up agency. It’s about Jesus believing in us to do the things he taught us. Following Jesus is not some always-trepidatious, hand-wringing kind of hope. Following Jesus is about being immersed in his teachings and hazarding faithful, audacious actions. Maybe church has taught us to be fans of Jesus instead of partners with Jesus.

If God were a shape, I bet God would be round. Like a squiggly chalk circle drawn by a small child. Or, maybe even a big lavender-colored bubble. Round and whole, without end, always expanding. Gaining ground. Consuming everything that is loveless. Reversing the consequences of lovelessness. Defeating arrogance with gentleness. Hard to see God doing all that from our vantage point. Hard to always believe that God can round off all the jagged things we do and have become. But that’s what God pledged. “I will accomplish it,” is what God said. Full circle.

What is lovable about Jesus is he’s undeterred. He mobilized people of all kinds in his God enterprise. He drew and affected crowds that organized religion couldn’t or wouldn’t. This caused people to want to “restrain” him. Even his family. We do that, don’t we? We are moved by his words and his love. His stories still touch us…beg us to live differently. But, we restrain him. Explain him away. Reduce him to an ancient Sunday story that has no power for Monday. But, what if we stopped that? What if we let him run free through our lives?

God is a song that needs a choir, not just sections or soloists. The Christian needs the Jew, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist and the “spiritual but not religious.” We need the scientist, the agnostic and the atheist. Without a commitment to listen to each other and to myself... Without a commitment to listen for the voice of the Universe’s never ceasing, healing, kind whisper, the best we’ll ever do is make religion a lonely island. Or, be trapped in the echo chamber of our deepest fears. What a shame that would be. We’re made for so much more.

“Imagine our homes and families where love is the way. Imagine our neighborhoods and communities where love is the way. Imagine our governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce where this love is the way. Imagine this tired old world where love is the way.When love is the way–unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive. When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more.”

An excerpt of the Presiding Bishop’s homily at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

There’s real resistance by individuals and the institutional church to engage friends and strangers with what we call, “the good news of Jesus Christ.” Sure, many preachers preach it and many worshippers nod but, quietly we know and accept no progress will be made. Maybe there’s an opportunity in Jesus’ prayer for us. When he prays to God he says, “the words that you gave to me I have given to them….” Maybe we could start there. Don’t call it evangelism, call it “words.” Just say the words God put on your heart: Love. Forgiveness. Truth. Faith. Would you share those?

The story of Moses is really a story of four women. Shiphrah and Puah were midwives that defied the evil decree of Pharaoh and showed us motherhood as advocacy. Though their own children weren’t in harm’s way, they advocated for the safety of all children. Then there’s Moses’ biological mother, Jochebed. She represents the spirit of sacrifice common among mothers. Because of her hard choice to give her son a future beyond her means, Moses is launched on his journey. Then comes Pharaoh's daughter. Her heart was so large and soft she adopted another woman’s child as her own.

On this Mother’s Day weekend, we salute the spirit of advocacy, sacrifice and compassion displayed by so many mothers.

We are “chosen” by God—chosen to understand that faith is more than a function of cognition or will power. Being chosen starts with the heart of God and means God is deliberate with a definite outcome in mind. It means down in a place we can’t explain or control, we know God is for us. Chosen means abundant life is a dynamic dialogue not a tragic ego-driven monologue. We are chosen for a fruitful friendship with God. Chosen to stand beside the other chosen 7 billion people of this planet. Chosen to sail on grace.

“There is no fear in love,” says the bible. Which means, Freud is wrong when he says, “…religion is simply an illusion that offers consolation.” Love casts out fear because, “…religiously serious people do not seek and do not find consolation in their faith. What they find is realism about their circumstance. What they find is a place to linger with courage and in which to practice faith in God.” So, we don’t need cheap consolation or protective hedge-ism for our souls. We need that sense of Reality that overthrows all competing realities. That Reality is Love.

1 John 4:18Richard Beck, The Authenticity of Faith:The Varieties and Illusions of Religious Experience

There’s so much that’s good about Jesus! Because of him, in no way, am I allowed to see myself as an ultimate waste of space. Through him, I gain a perspective that everything around me is valuable…that everything is really gift. By his example, we understand that the natural way to live as human beings is in the mutual intimacy of giving and receiving. What’s good about Jesus is he’s always making us more human. Though we want to “draw the whole world into the hungry stomach of our ego,” Jesus always sees us, all of us, as redeemable.

What we believe is on display when we worship. When we worship, we use 4 pieces of Scripture. Though it’s a complicated thing, we believe God speaks through the Bible! Will Willimon says, “A congregation is Christian to the degree that it is confronted by and attempts to form its life in response to the Word of God.” So we are to have a familiarity and friendship with God’s word that’s regularly changing us. Making more of us. Making us in the image of God. Our hearts are soil, God’s words are seed yearning to see the surface of our lives.